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Amid red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Church of Norway expressed regret for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.

“Norway's church has caused the LGBTQ+ community harm, suffering and humiliation,” the lead bishop, the church leader, stated this Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”

“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” resulted in a loss of faith for some, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo's main cathedral was scheduled to take place after his statement.

The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 attack that took two lives and injured nine people severely during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for the killings.

Similar to numerous global faiths, Norway's church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to have church weddings. During the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.

However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, emerging as the world's second to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples during 1993 and in 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

Back in 2007, Norway's church started appointing homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners could have church weddings from 2017 onward. During 2023, Tveit participated in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a historic moment for the religious institution.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, a lesbian minister herself, called it “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

For Stephen Adom, the director of the Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Norway, the apology was “powerful and significant” but had come “not in time for those who lost their lives to AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the crisis as divine punishment”.

Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to offer apologies for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, although it persists in refusing to allow same-sex marriages within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland last year expressed regret for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but remained staunch in its conviction that matrimony must only constitute a union between a man and a woman.

In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church issued an apology to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” throughout every area of church life.

“We have failed to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, said. “We caused pain to people rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”